


the sun and the moon and the stars

by meliore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Confusing, First Love, Human Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Social Anxiety, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliore/pseuds/meliore
Summary: Where Tony is a quiet sun, James is a cold moon and the stars are the confusing world around them. Or maybe they're up in the sky, since the world around them is not as attractive as the stars.





	the sun and the moon and the stars

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what happened here, to be honest. i know that i sat in my chair, in front of my computer, and that i wanted to write something and next i knew i had written this.
> 
> this might be bad, it might be out of character, but You Only Live Once and i liked it
> 
> this is kind of how my mind is. a confusing place with metaphors and Confusion. so i put some aspects -- maybe a lot, who knows -- of it, of my own past anxiety, of me here. so you who choose to read this, you're getting to know a part of me!

Tony makes James feel like getting up and stretching and trying to touch the sky and trying to eat a sun.

He’s the new kid in their tiny town, and he makes James feel like a clown. Well, he was the class clown just a bit ago. Mother keeps trying to convince him to talk to Tony, but how could James, who barely goes out now, do that?

Stevie’s mom had moved to somewhere a bit more in the future, making sure to bring him with her, and despite the town knowing this moment would came, everyone lost something the day Stevie’s dad came to give them a ride.

The kids had no one to beat up, some of the teachers lost the angel-kid-that-could-be-a-devil-when-he-wanted-to and some of them just lost their actual hope for the class. James lost his best friend, and with his phone broken, no one he knew and was comfortable with having a phone or a computer and the LAN gaming center being a bit too distant and too crowded, he just didn’t had a way to connect with Stevie.

So here he is. Feeling too old for crayons but too young for parties and alcohol and adult-ish things. Or even teenager-ish things. But he’s not too young or too old for the sky or for the sun.

He walks around the road of his street, the day he’s brave enough or not lazy enough to go out and walk. ~~“You’re so young, James,” mother said when she thought he was distracted. “How can you be so young and have something like panic disorder?”~~ And soon enough, he’s in front of Tony’s house, the satellite that flies around his head.

The thing about the new kid in their tiny town is that some of the adults or elders say that he looks even smaller than the place they live in. And it’s the truth.

Tony is the sun, shining so bright, catching the attention of everyone but not hurting people’s eyes. James is pretty sure there’s some girls or even boys or even something else entirely in his school that are thinking, in their own ridiculous little words, about Tony. Like he’s a bad guy who’s taking them for a ride. There’s some nasty bullies in his school that would think about Tony being a girl instead. And, like, why can’t they think about him being a boy?

His mind wanders before he can control it.

Anyway. Tony is the sun, but he’s not happy. He never smiles, never talks to any other person.

“Why do you like him?” his sister asked one day.

“I don’t.” he replied. Rebecca rolled her eyes, knowing him too well to believe on it.

“Why do you like him, James?” she sighed. “It’s like he doesn’t even exist.”

Rebecca, or the other kids in her class, don’t mean to be actually... Mean about it, but here they are, gossiping about someone that already gives signs of not being in the best state they could be.

But James can barely bring himself to go out as it is, so he just shrugs and thinks about replies he could’ve told her later.

He came to school, mother talking to the headmaster about a bit of more time regarding studies because they’ll have to go to the city to find him a better therapist than the ones from their town. James could pout about it but he’s the one who talked about touching knives to her so he’s the one to blame.

Tony is such a quiet sun.

 

But the thing about the sun is that it follows you everywhere.

James had noticed something weird following him, only seeing what he now realizes were black curls behind him when he turned, determined to find out this time if it had been just his imagination playing with him or something else.

“Hey,” Tony greets.

James is silent, his heart beating way too fast, and he can’t identify if it’s an anxiety crisis or a panic attack or. Or something else.

Tony blinks, but moves his head down. He looks to his feet.

And he just. Freezes.

Doesn’t move.

Won’t move.

“Hey,” Bucky manages back, minutes later. Tony looks up with the sun in his face.

“My name’s Tony.”

 _I know_ , Bucky thinks.

“I, huh, name--hum--my name is Bucky.”

It’s a moment that, in movies, is worthy of facepalming. Bucky can only flush and be disappointed when the laugh Tony was about to let out is contained.

 

So he does build something in his head. Between calculus and guns and Stevie and the sun and metaphors and mental illnesses there’s a future he imagines, dating Tony or. Marrying him. That’s going a bit too far, but should he care?

And they don’t talk to each other, not for a while, because Bucky goes out and then never does it again and then goes out and never and goes and and and--

He goes from James to Bucky and from Bucky to James. It’s not a separate personality, he thinks, more like a persona and what he really is.

And James is a somewhat apathetic kid that’s not sure of anything, while Bucky is comfortable but sometimes annoying to be.

Because Bucky is the one who knows how to punch and thinks he’d survive a war against zombies and is the class clown and Bucky has Stevie and Bucky’s dad is still alive.

James has the sun and only the sun.

 

Then, one day, the sun sits on his garden. The sun’s garden, that is. Bucky thinks about calling him or saying hi.

The sun goes, front and back, back and front, rocking and biting or sucking his finger, he’s not sure, not from the angle he’s seeing it.

James is about to interrupt this, but for the first time, an adult interrupts before he can. It’s a blond man, just like Stevie’s dad, just like Stevie.

And he lets out a sigh, like he’s used to deal with--to deal with--to deal with this.

“Sir,” he comes closer and he kneels near him. “sir,” he repeats.

He takes Tony’s hand far from his mouth. “Sir,” and Tony blinks and looks to him.

“Dad,” he whispers, and Bucky almost fails to hear him. “I want my dad.”

The man looks shocked, but not enough to leave him alone.

“He has suffered from an unfortunate accident,” he replies. “we’ll go inside. Your friend can come with us.”

So. So he did realize James was.

Fuck.

Tony looks back, but his body tension is lost in his tiny self, and he doesn’t smiles, but the sun shines when he looks to James.

Which is how James realizes he really, really likes Tony.

 

Turns out Tony has troubles, maybe not the same ones James has, but troubles still. He lives with a butler that’s legally his father, though their relationship seems to be more of two friends.

And James talks to him and Tony answers back.

By his thirteenth birthday, some months later, they’re very friendly with each other, but the destiny looks at James and says _you’ve got yourself a therapist_ anyway.

* * *

 

The city has anything James has ever loved.

It has Stevie, with new friends and being the boy who has heart eyes at some people in the neighborhood. It has his family, it has a nice vibe around it, something about it will stay alive, different from his hometown.

And he should feel great.

But the sun doesn’t follow him here. What shines to him is the moon.

The moon just happens to be his own damn self.

* * *

 “Have you seen Rhodes?”

As time walked, sometimes ran and sometimes crawled around them, many things happened because of course many things would happen.

Time was a funny thing.

“Why do you want to talk to him?”

Stevie was--okay, he wasn’t going to lie, Steve was _bizarre_. He went from a what, scrawny kid to a jock. And his friends were still around, the list growing with time, not to his surprise.

Nat had gained a gold medal in her Judo competition and was training for a ballet one. Thor, more and more, talked in terms the team couldn’t understand--like, some of they might know math but we’re talking the weight of stars here, and if anything Bucky knows about the weight of a gun.

Clint had a growing interest for archery, which was interesting considering he always wanted to play darts when they were younger.

Back to reality, though: Steve, for some reason, needs to do something--talk or whatever--with the _role model_ from the other half of the school.

So Clint’s question is entirely justified.

“Uh,” he says. Frowns. “A letter meant for him was given to me. Accidentally.”

...Oh.

Oh no.

Clint doesn’t even need to open his mouth for Bucky or anyone else know that he’s about to, what, be the asshole he is--

“And why don’t you open it?”

Steve makes a face.

“It’s his privacy being invaded?”

“C’mon dude,” Clint smiles. “bet it’s only going to be bills.”

Steve shakes his head, but Bucky can see it. The seed of thought was just planted in his best friend’s head.

 

By the time Steve does open it--not too long after when he received, Bucky knows--he had almost forgot about it.

What reminds him of it is a _holy mother of Jesus_.

“What?” he turns, to see what his best friend is up to now.

Steve just shakes his head.

“Here,” he gives it to Bucky, temporarily forgetting about the I-will-never-break-someone’s-privacy speech his own self stood for just days before.

 _Rhodey_ , is how the letter starts.

 _I know I should call you, or just go and visit you, I know that this is what you would like me to do, but I can’t. I really can’t. Bruce’s dad just kicked him out and--_ there’s a name or something else. Whatever it is, Bucky can’t identify it. Blue ink has scratched over it. -- _I couldn’t leave him alone in a situation like this._

_But I don’t have anywhere to go and there’s not anyone that can support me aside from j and j hasn’t came back in a while and_

_Sorry. Bruce told me I was having a panic attack._

_I just. We just. Need somewhere to stay. Please please please help me_

_-you know who I am_

 

_P.S: the money is for you._

And then, there are some dollars, wrapped around each other.

Bucky never thought he’d see this, never thought someone could sound so helpless through a fucking letter.

 

Explaining to Rhodes that they got his letter is hard enough. Explaining to him that both of them read it is impossible.

* * *

 The moon will follow James no matter where he goes.

In the silent times he’s able to be James, he’s just like what the moon is: cold, without oxygen, going around a breathing Earth.

Rhodes doesn’t talk about the letter to them, in fact, after a vague discussion about it they agree to ignore it and act like it never happened and let Rhodes do what he needs to do. It reminds James of something.

Something distant.

There are insects in the grass, but the moon’s high in the sky.

* * *

 And he hasn’t forgotten Tony. He has dated some girls, but.

But they were never like the sun. Not to him.

Maybe it’s the first love thing, or maybe he’s still in love as much as he was years ago.

Sometimes he writes poetry about the sun and posts it on tumblr. People praise him, they say things like “you’re such a good writer, jamie!!!!” or “i love how your characters talk about the sun” and he just nods and play along, because that’s it, just a character thing, just a poetry thing.

It’s not.

And maybe the moon goes up in the sky because of how fucking hot it can be inside a room in a rented house, maybe because James might’ve realized he didn’t ate because Steve’s at the ballet competition Natasha invited them to and James is wearing his pajamas still--red flannel pants, a black band t-shirt and a necklace he gained from his mother that has the sun and the moon as its pendants, near each other, being able to exist in the same place and at the same time.

But the moon goes out, and it’s actually to smoke, to think about life and contemplate ending it all because the anxiety and the emotional dependence he has on his mom and on the past is not cool.

It’s silent at first, but then the sun finds itself near the moon just like in his necklace. The sun is drinking from a bottle of liquor, talking loudly to a guy just some steps down, sitting on the stairs. The sun looks behind, notices a shadow and, and, and and and--

Tony looks behind.

James feels like the very shy, or maybe just panicked, boy he once was, who flushed at the first opportunity.

And in the shine of the eyes of the sun is the entire universe, everything it will ever need or needed to exist, all the calculus and counts that only a scientific calculator could do, all the calculus it needs to survives.

The stars shine bright in the sky, even though they’re on the city now, and maybe they decided to celebrate the birth of the sun or the death of the moon, decided to celebrate the fact that the moon and the sun found each other side by side for the first time, finally equal, finally shining.

The moon might be cold, the sun might burn, but they’re necessary for the balance.

And when they’re together, they shine like the bright of the tears, they are cold like the sound of sobbing, they are beautiful like _is it you, is it really you?_ and _god likes me so much_ , are imprecise and precise at the same time just like the human nature.

But whatever they are or are not, they’re together, with calculus and the stars, and they shine brightly up there.

They’re together, and for lovers, it’s the only thing that matters in the entire universe.

**Author's Note:**

> finally i reveal my true form: angsty, confusing, metaphors and characters in love.


End file.
